Older workers' experience, dedication no longer valued

Monday , June 18, 2012 - 3:50 PM

Phil Johnson

Editor,

Sadly we are living in a time when, although our politicians like to tell us otherwise, our jobless rate is still at an all-time high. As I look each day in vain at the various "help wanted" ad forums, I realize that we are often putting ourselves out of work by placing undue restrictions on hiring that serve no practical purpose.

I come from a long-gone era, being born during WWII, when you entered the job market, the highly important thing was to gain experience in that job, which would not only make you a better employee, but could gain you a better position when you sought to move on.

This obviously is no longer the case, as out of work persons now are being required to have a college degree to perform such simple tasks as answering telephones. This, in my opinion is a large reason we have so many out of work and it is absolutely ridiculous.

I have over 40 Years of business experience including being purchasing manager of the largest formaldehyde producing plant in the world. I have applied for countless positions, including part-time work at the library, with no success after four years of trying. In my day it was the older experienced employees who were responsible to teach the newer, younger employees the work process.

What are people like me, who are in the over-65 bracket supposed to do, just plug our car's tailpipe into the garage and go away? What happened to this country? What about experience and dedication that most of us older workers have, counting for something? In other countries the older workers are highly regarded and some companies have them employed until death and regard their experience as extremely valuable. Shame on America's employers.